The Government’s War on Dogs

A very disturbing trend is occurring in the prosecution of the federal’s government’s “War on Drugs:” an additional war on the country’s canine companions. It started in Maryland in 2008 with the case of a small town mayor:

BERWYN HEIGHTS, Md. (AP) - Mayor Cheye Calvo got home from work, saw a package addressed to his wife on the front porch and brought it inside, putting it on a table.

Suddenly, police with guns drawn kicked in the door and stormed in, shooting to death the couple’s two dogs and seizing the unopened package.

The package had 32 pounds of marijuana, quite a bit of the illegal substance, but certainly not of more worth than the life of a pet.

The trend continued recently with the released video of a raid in Missouri in May, in which dogs can be heard howling as they are shot by a SWAT team:

Today’s story of police canicide comes to us by way of the Associated Press (click to watch the video). A 62-year-old grandmother in Washington, DC tells AP that police came to her home serving a drug warrant for her 28-year-old grandson. The grandma asks to put her dog in the back yard or the bathroom. The cops tell her the bathroom would be fine. Later, the cops open the bathroom door, claim this 13-year-old dog named “Wrinkles” attacked them, and they shoot it multiple times. By the way, the grandson hasn’t lived in the home for a dozen years and the only drugs cops found were what they claimed was “drug residue” on some baggies, which the grandma contends is the residue of fortune cookies.

There was another heartbreaking dog killing by police in Lagrange, Missouri, caught on video that you can view on our NORML Stash Blog. This incident did not involve a drug warrant, however. Instead it was a report of an aggressive dog, who on video appeared to be quite calm and friendly, shot to death by an officer after the officer had it fully restrained by chain, noose, and pole.

In an interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, conservative Charles Krauthammer conceded that the “war on drugs” (which I contend should be called “the Government’s War on the People”) will never be won, but that a world in which narcotics like heroin were available at the local pharmacy would not be one he wants to live in. Well, Mr. Krauthammer, your priorities are certainly different than mine. A world where drugs are widely available legally (Mr. Krauthammer may be unaware that narcotics are widely available illegally, despite our government’s best efforts to the contrary) would be supremely preferable to a world in which I have to fear that a SWAT team will break down my door and kill my pets (or worse) under the suspicion that I have drugs in my possession. That is a tyranny that would have horrified our founding fathers, and certainly horrifies any citizen who has not lived in the soul-destroying environment of Washington D.C. as long as Krauthammer.

Taxpayer dollars should not be used to terrorize taxpayers, especially not under the pretense of protecting them from themselves.